My
Doctor is Cute 7/30/2002
Ah, the advantage of having one's employer's health insurance at a residency
teaching hospital. Young doctors everywhere. Young beautiful doctors everywhere-
smart, confident enough to look you straight in the eye and cast a sly
smile that says that they know exactly what you're thinking, but have
no fear of you whatsoever. It is you who should fear them, their cleverness
perhaps equal, no, well beyond any game your little synapse gaps could
devuse to coax them to a coffee at the Naked Lounge, much less any sort
of continuing relationship->> Oh gosh, even a "hello, my name is…." is
beyond your pathetic ken. You are but a humble, bumbling, but brave and
amusing fool in their eyes. But the rush those knowing glances, those
burning smiles induce in you can't help but make you think it's the most
wonderful role to be played on god's green earth. They're everywhere,
and your head can't turn fast enough to glimpse them all. Kid in the candy
store. Pulse quickens, and you are so happy to be alive. It's poetry walking
everywhere, immense, powerful. Words lie heavy on the tongue. You cannot
express what is whirling all your senses and every cell in your mortal
coil into a buzzing concerto of one hundred enthusiastic kazoos playing
La Marseilles. Bill Shakespeare would be left to do an interpretive
dance in such a setting. I can only sit. Mum. Stupified. A happy child
in life's playground. Ah.
I sit patiently. I know my doctor's name is O'Leary. A nice Irish girl, definitely, I enthuse.
I get my call from the nurse. She's none the looker, but chipper nonetheless. Vitals taken.
Your blood pressure is great -108 over 72.
What does that mean? 108 over 72 of what?
Oh, millilitres of mercury.
Huh? Do I have mercury in my blood?
The RN explains. I half listen. Uh huh. Uh huh. I intone. The tall Indian woman in her white residency coat has walked by yet again, and flashed perhaps her fourth smile at me. Being the fool I am, this is the highlight of my summer. I bask in the smiles as though they were the sun itself. She has long wavy black hair to her shoulders that beats up and down like wings as she makes her brisk, but graceful strides across the carpet rushing from one examining room to another, wicked white, and perfectly orthodontized teeth, deep brown eyes, and sharp nose. She could be in Bollywood.
I sit waiting in an examining room, door opened, reading my Eduardo Galeano book about the woes of Latin America. Dr. Bollywood breezes by again.
Have you been helped? She asks in what seems the kindest tone I've heard in years.
I go all deer in the headlights.
I'm waiting for Dr. O'Leary, I choke.
Her wicked smile and "very good" (english accent and all!) muses at my schoolboyness. I am a truly silly man, but embarrassed not one wit.
I continue reading until I hear "Mr. Rocker" and see my adorable doctor who is the very picture of Irishness that I had hoped to find. She is a pixie at perhaps 5'4", bobbed brown hair with a moonish face and cute little upward-arched round nose. Eyes are round and childlike. She looks like Christina Ricci. So taken with her face, I failed to notice if her ears met pixie specs. Like any good pixie, she appears to be ageless, the type of person who'll look the same at 70 as at 21, save a little more wisdom in and around the eyes. She could be 25 or 50 for all I know. And all I know is that she is ringed. Is it real, or a ploy to keep the dozens of wolves she must see daily at bay?
Why are you here today?
Well, basically, about the results of the lipids panel test.
Oh, let's see. Oh, here they are. They look great. Well below normal on the bad cholesterol and right at normal level on the good cholesterol. Anything else..
We go over a couple of concerns. I tell her about the running, the biking, the yoga, and the bike wreck a couple of weeks ago and how my right hand still hurts a bit. A bit tender it is on the meaty side.
Do you wear a helmet?
I show her the helmet.
Good she says. Could save your life.
Has saved my life, I say.
I'm nervous. Turning into a blithering idiot. I lurch forward in my chair. I'm such a happy chihuahua, that I want to run as far and quickly away as possible before my impulse to hump her leg completely seizes me.
Well, I'll let you help someone who really needs it, I say.
Wait, she says. I'm not done. I sit obediently. A bad dog scolded.
May I examine you?
The thoughts racing through my head in response to that request need not been recounted. I say yes, of course. I'm poked, prodded. Asked to cough a lot.
Strong heartbeat she says.
She says she has been here for two months. From East Coast, Colombia med school.
I said, ah, New York. Not many nice Irish girls around here.
She snickers.
She says that a nice Irish boy like me needs to wear sunscreen, year round, especially if he's gonna be biking everywhere. You weren't meant for the sunny skies of California. You were meant for Northern climes with lots of clouds and fog and rain. Not all this sun.
I agree. SPF 45.
Whatever you say, even if the Cherokee blood is SPF 50.
She is married. Husband is from Texas. Deer Park.
What possessed you to do a thing like that? I asked. Did he get you drunk?
She laughs. He's charming she says.
We Texans are all charming, I say. At least on our better days.
She brings in the doctor in charge. This is a residency hospital after all. Someone's got to check on the students. The DIC smiles widely the whole time, asks a few questions, shakes my hand and leaves.
Ouch I say on the handshake.
The hand is a bit tender. Dr. Cute says we may need an x-ray to be certain about the state of the right hand.
Scribble, scribble.
Then she goes all priest on me. I can't remember the exact words. It was a "Hep B" schpiel. She went on about sexual activity and the risk of contracting hep B.
I just laughed. Not an issue, I said.
No, really, she insists, Hep B contracted during sexual intercourse has become a serious problem over the last year, you should really consider the Hep B antidote.
She goes into a detailed description of the procedure for the antidote, and how it's done 3 times over 6 months, and I just laugh and laugh.
Stop, Doctor. I say. Please. I appreciate the sentiment, but it is a non-issue.
I know that you probably trust your partners….
Doctor, stop. I say. Seriously. It's a nonissue. I appreciate your concern.
Hep B is life threatening.
No.. Stop.. I say. Doctor. I'm going to tell this to you straight, just to relay what a non-issue this is. I haven't been laid in more than 3 years. Okay. So when did the outbreak start?
A year ago.
Ergo, good doctor. Pour moi, it's a non-issue. A non-issue for now and the foreseeable future. Again, I don't want to show any disrespect for what you are trying to do, but save your breath for those who need it.
Oh, I'm sorry. She said.
Don't be, I said. I'm flattered.
I realized how truly odd it is that a diatribe on Hep B could seem like a compliment to some. How truly odd such a stance should seem to this sweet young doctor. Or again, maybe the Hep B speech was far from flattery, but a statement that I seemed but a poor and ignorant fool who boinks anything anytime anywhere sans condom. In the bushes, in the gutters. In the back of tricked-out-like-the-4th-of-July-Hyundais, malt beverage staining the seats, Beck's Midnite Vultures blasting from the hoopdee, my partner taking one last blast on the crack pipe before going down. On third thought, I was taking this Hep B sexual transmission thing way too personally. What a narcissist!
I'd made Dr. Cute uncomfortable. I could see that this doctor was not accustomed to the Law Office bluntness I'd faced and adopted on a daily basis for the last 5 1/2-plus years. I tried so desperately to warm things again.
Do you get a lot of these Hep B cases?
Yes, more than I'd ever hoped to see.
But I'd blown it. An asshole. How to Lose Friends and Alienate People--> A new book by Toby Young. I could well write my own version.
The doctor now looked at me with pity and left to retrieve a business card. She returned with it, and tried to muster a warm smile as she told me to call if I were to need anything. I thanked her profusely. She just wanted me to leave.
Good luck, I said, and "Have a nice residency."
Ah.. that won her back for a second. It was a really big brilliant smile. The eyes had shine and sparkle. I waited near the front desk for my walking papers. Dr. Bollywood passed again, and winked.
